Yours
by brittany.heye
Summary: A bughead oneshot based on the song Yours by Russell Dickerson. A reunion one shot set after 2x09


Yours:

Bughead Fanfiction: Based on the song Yours by Russel Dickerson

I watched Archie step onto the stage from my spot in the back of the room. He was playing a set at the Riverdale Winter Festival. He cleared his throat and got settled and then introduced his son.

"I'll get to the Christmas songs in a minuet but first, I wrote this song for someone special to me, and I think it could apply to many people and after what we have been through, I decided we needed a reminder that love matters. I hope you like it."

He started to play and as he did I caught sight of my Hitchcock Blonde sliding closer to the stage with a beaming Veronica.

 _I was a boat stuck in a bottle  
That never got the chance to touch the sea  
Just forgot on the shelf  
No wind in the sails  
Going nowhere with no one but me  
I was one in one-hundred billion  
A burned out star in a galaxy  
Just lost in the sky wondering why  
Everyone else shines out but me_

As the song began I felt the lyrics, and remembered the early days with Betty. I remember the feeling of being on the outside looking in. Looking in to life on the Northside, life with Betty and Archie. A life where Betty loved Archie. A life where my mom left, and my dad chose the bottle and a gang over his family. Then Archie finally came clean, I started writing for the Blue and Gold and spending even more time with the girl of my dreams and everything changed.

 _But  
I came to life when I first kissed you  
The best me has his arms around you  
You make me better_ _than I was before  
Thank God I'm yours_

I can't help but picture our first kiss, how scared I was, and then the feeling of the world falling into place around us as we kissed in her bedroom. I finally felt like I belonged, and the little smile playing on her lips felt like the best gift I had ever gotten. I watched the smile on her face now dim, and I wondered if she was missing me the way I was missing her.

Her gift was sitting on my desk in the trailer untouched because I couldn't write without thinking of her and the afternoons in the Blue and Gold office writing together. The few nights she stayed and I wrote while she read curled up into my side. The moments we created surrounding my passion were now making that passion hard to do these days. I missed her, my inspiration, my editor, my voice of reason in a crazy world.

 _I was a worn out set of shoes  
Wandering the city street  
Another face in the crowd  
Head looking down  
Lost in the sound of a lonely melody  
Empty pockets at a roulette  
Always landing on a lost bet  
Just live for the spin and hope for the win  
Go all in just to lose again_

I had always felt like my life was one giant horror story. The dysfunctional family. The mother who took her favorite, the younger sister, and fled, leaving her son to deal with the sinking ship. An alcoholic father who cared more about the gang and his booze than his family- or at least that's what I thought. The father I was almost arrested and charged with murder because of- and my life on the wrong side of the tracks and the popularity spectrum. The lonely kid who was on the outside looking in.

 _But  
I came to life when I first kissed you  
The best me has his arms around you  
You make me better than I was before  
Thank God I'm yours  
The worst me is just a long gone memory  
You put a new heartbeat inside of me  
You make me better than I was before  
Thank God I'm yours_

The blonde now searching the crowd fixed all those holes in my heart. She gave me a bigger sense of purpose, of belonging than my friendship with Archie, than my writing, than anything. Her green eyes and wide smile, her ponytail and her red pen- they gave me life, gave me a home in her. I miss it. I miss her.

I miss slipping into our booth at Pops and sipping milkshakes, eating and laughing with Archie and Veronica. I miss watching her cheer with the Vixens and thinking 'holy crap that girl is mine,' as I watched her dance around the field. I miss sitting next to her at the lunch table and watching her laugh with Veronica and Kevin. I miss watching her face as Archie played a new song. I miss having the privilege of being able to put my arms around her at things like this.

I wanted to walk over and put my arms around her. Say I'm sorry, and right everything in my world, but she deserves more than me, more than what I can give her. I'm stuck here, stuck in this life, she doesn't deserve that.

I was a boat stuck in a bottle  
That never got the chance to touch the sea

I came to life when I first kissed you  
The best me has his arms around you  
You make me better than I was before  
Thank God I'm yours

I watched her search the crowd, wondering if she was looking for me. I had spotted her the minuet I got here, sneaking in with Fangs and Sweet Pea. Her blonde head a beacon for my sight, easily spotted. I had watched her laugh and joke with Archie and Kevin, watched as her and Veronica talked and then shared a hug. I watched her be her typical happy Betty Cooper self and being sad that I wasn't a part of it anymore because she made me want to be better.

She had given me hope that I could be more than my family, and I had kamikazed that myself- trying to save my friends, and her, from a civil war that had already began to erupt, and inflict damage. She supported me, I knew that, but I never wanted the life I was now stuck with.

 _The worst me is just a long gone memory  
You put a new heartbeat inside of me  
You make me better than I was before  
Thank God I'm yours_

My eyes went back to Archie, who was staring at Veronica as he sang, and I wished I could be as happy as my best friend was. I wanted Betty to wipe away the worst version of me that I was sinking into. I wanted her to come back, and make me work to be better than I am. Hell, she still does that, even if I know I can't have her, even though I chose this, I made the choice to run the gauntlet. I made the choice to push her away, again, to keep her safe.

Sweet Pea nudged me, moving my eye line from the stage to him. "Incoming boss." He nodded to my left, and sure enough there was Betty Cooper, pushing through the crowd. I gave him and Fangs a nod, and moved to meet her, unable to stay away.

Her demon was gone now, the Black Hood vanquished. Mine were mounting- all my sins with the Serpents haunting my memory as I meet her eyes. "Hi Juggie."

"Hi Betts." She nodded over her shoulder, at Archie finishing up the song. "He wrote this about us. Right after he first found out. It was going to be a part of the birthday bash. Did you know that?" Huh, what do you know.

"No. I didn't. Makes sense I guess." I messed up that night to, I've messed up a lot this year.

 _Thank God I'm yours_

"I miss you Jug. I miss us. I miss the way things used to be." I agreed with her, but I can't say that out loud. Or I shouldn't but lately I've done nothing I should do so what the hell?

"I do to Betty. But…" She cut me off. "Jug, I get that you are upset with me. I messed up, but I was just trying to find a way to be involved in your life. I felt like you were drifting and I wanted to make sure I still fit in your life somehow. I went about it the wrong way, but that's why. I also was worried about you. I still am. I'm sorry."

God she's making this so hard. "I…" She cut me off again. "I need you Jughead. My life, it doesn't make sense without you in it. Those few months with you were perfect, even when life was a mess, you made them perfect. I want to fix this, fix us, so that we can go back to that."

Holy hell, what do you say to that? "Betty…I miss you, I miss that but I'm a serpent now." She took a step closer. "I don't care Jug, I didn't want to stop you from that, I wanted to feel like I fit into your life on the Southside. I listened to, and took advice from the wrong people, but I want to be a part of your life, however you want me."

I closed my eyes. Fuck, I can't turn her away. I was going to put her at risk, put my heart at further risk. I opened my eyes.

 _Thank God I'm yours_

"Betty, I want you in my life. I keep pushing you away because I am trying to protect you. Not that you help that goal when you chase serial killers," I crack a joke, and she tentatively smiled at my tone, "god Betts, I want nothing more than to go back to us, but how? I'm on the Southside."

She had that knowing twinkle in her eye. "Southside High is getting shut down. All of you are going to be sent to Riverdale High after break. I know that it won't be perfect, that it won't be the same but we will work it out." I allow the smile I had been fighting to see the light at that news, even as the problems with it swarm the rest of my brain, I ignore it because of her.

She put her hand on my chest. "I love you Jughead, the rest is semantics." The grin gets bigger, "I love you to Betty Cooper." I bent my head, and she met me half way, and then she was kissing me and I was once again in paradise. Cheesy, but true.

Archie gives one last soft strum in the background and the final, _Thank God I'm yours_ and the audience explodes into applause, but Betty and I don't break apart. All I can think about is her and this moment, and that I am done trying to push her away.

She broke the kiss, and as her green eyes met mine she whispered, "Thank god I'm yours." I laughed and kissed her nose, "no Betts, thank god I'm yours." Her smile was a mile wide, and could have lit the world, it lit up mine. "we are better together, than apart." She nodded and then her arms slipped over my shoulder, and she was kissing me again.

The squeal of her best friend is what broke us apart for the second time. Her smile was genuine as she settled into my side, and we bot tuned back in as Archie began to play White Christmas. Fangs and Sweet Pea made their way back to my side, and Veronica and Kevin stood on the other side of Betty, and for the rest of the night both parts of my life mixed together and gave me hope that this time, things could work.


End file.
